are actually finally going to bloom. They are about twice as tall as I am...I crane my neck to see the tops of them.

Here is a picture!

can you see the hint of yellow at the top? Just a dot, really. They're in the sunflower family; I'll take another picture when they actually do bloom.

and here is some beautiful cosmos

today in the woods, I closed my eyes, and still I could experience that dappledness of sun-then shadow-then sun-then shadow as I walked. And I could smell the smell of sweet clover gone to seed. The seeds taste like vanilla (but bitter, too).

Right now just the smog--but the real hell weather is just beginning. By next week inevitably the air is going to be filled with smoke, because it will be dry and up to a 100 plus by Sunday. I just hope we don't have two months of this ahead.

Your Jerusalem artichokes look happy! I used to have a bunch of them... but the maple tree keept getting wider, and shading them. The artichokes moved east, and further east, but then they hit the driveway and the maple shade won.

I am not much of a gardener. I like it, in theory, but in practice the work gives me such dreadful allergies I can't reliably take care of stuff.

yes, our artichokes are also doing well. Not as well as yours with the sun you get over there- but doing well enough. I couldn't remember- when is a good time to dig them up and eat them?????When i was little I dug them out of the ground and ate them raw.I don't think I'll be doing that this time around but- I'm excited anyway!

I really like the jerusalem artichoke picture 'specially the blue green effect ..is that the light or something to do with the photography? is there anyway I can get this picture for a screen saver?when I get round to learning how to post pictures..I will send you a picture of my mango tree in a pot..it gives out lovely red new leaves which gradually turn a paler shade of red and then green, so at a time it has leaves of all colours..

The blue-green-ness is just how it looks (though I did enhance the color saturation because the photo came out bleached--this is closer to reality that the unenhanced photo was). Today they're slightly more open!

If you want it as a screen saver, I advise going here, which is my flickr page with the large size of the picture. Then I believe you can download it.

If any part of that doesn't work--if you can't get to the flickr page, or it won't let you download, then leave me another message--I'll find a way to send it to you directly:-)

As for making it a screensaver, I'm not sure how you do that once it's on the computer, but I'll ask my husband. I think it's pretty easy.